Randall E. Stross

“Graham excuses himself for a moment to go over to his laptop and look up what he had written in his notes after their interview. When he returns, he reports that he had written the following: “Insanely energetic founders. Fund for the new idea.” So Graham is not going to be the one who encourages them to pursue”
― Randall E. Stross, The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator

“As the other startups do at the end of their presentations, Shen offers to the batch the expertise of his team's members: "Kalvin and Randy are developers," he says, and as for himself, he knows how to stay motivated in the face of rejection. "I've gotten rejected thirty days in a row," he says, a reference to his putting himself through "Rejection Therapy," in which one must make unreasonable requests so that one is rejected by a different person, at least once, every single day- inuring one to the pain of rejection. (One example of Shen's first bid to be rejected: he asked a flight attendant if he could move up to first class for free. In another case, he saw an attractive woman on the train and decided he would ask her for her phone number, and when she would turn him down, he would have fulfilled the day's required quota of rejection. He sat near her, fell into a conversation, and when they got off the train and he asked for her number, she said, "Sure." He categorized this as "Failed Rejection.") "So if you need to get pumped up for your sales calls, talk to me. p121”
― Randall E. Stross, The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's Most Exclusive School for Startups